Charity Scams: How to Check a Donation Request Before You Give

How to check a charity in a few minutes

Before giving, confirm the organization’s exact legal name, look it up with your state charity regulator and with the IRS, and read what it says about its own programs. Those three steps take about as long as filling in a payment form, and they are the whole check.

1. Write down the exact name. Not the cause, the organization. The Federal Trade Commission warns in its guidance on giving to charity that some operations pick names close to those of well-known charities. Hearing a familiar name is not the same as being given one.
2. Search the name with a second word. Add complaint, review, rating, or scam. This takes seconds and surfaces most of what is publicly known.
3. Check whether the charity and the fundraiser are registered. Most states require both to register with a state regulator, usually the attorney general’s office or a secretary of state charity division. Find yours through the USA.gov directory of state attorneys general, and follow the link to state charity officials on the FTC’s own giving to charity page.
4. Check the IRS listing. Use the Tax Exempt Organization Search to see an organization’s tax-exempt status, its eligibility to receive deductible contributions, and its filings.
5. Read the organization’s own site. Look for specific programs, locations, and results rather than photographs and slogans. The FTC advises being suspicious when detailed information about a mission and programs is hard to find.
6. Decide how to pay before you decide to give. Card or check keeps a record and a route for a dispute. Requests limited to gift cards, wire transfers, cryptocurrency, or payment apps are the FTC’s stated warning sign.

If a request cannot survive those six steps, the answer is simply to give somewhere else. There is no shortage of organizations doing the work you care about.

What registration and tax-exempt status actually tell you

Registration and IRS recognition tell you that an organization exists as a legal entity and has filed what it is required to file. They do not tell you that it spends money well, and they are not a recommendation. That distinction is worth holding on to, because a fundraiser will often present registration as an endorsement.

The IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search answers a narrower question than people expect. It shows whether an organization is eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions, its tax-exempt status, its determination letter, and its annual filings, including the Form 990 series. It also carries the automatic revocation list, which shows organizations that lost exempt status for failing to file.

State registration answers a different question again: whether the charity and the professional fundraiser calling on its behalf are allowed to solicit in your state. Many state offices publish financial reports alongside the registration, which is often the fastest place to see how much of the money raised reached the programs.

Where the money goes, and how to find out

Ask what share of your donation reaches the program you care about, then verify the answer somewhere other than with the person asking. The FTC notes that a caller is most likely a paid fundraiser rather than the charity itself, and suggests asking them, then calling the organization directly and asking again.

The Form 990 filings available through the IRS search are the primary record, and they are public. They show revenue, expenses, the largest program areas, and what the organization paid for fundraising and administration. Reading one takes patience the first time and much less after that.

Two questions to ask directly, both of which the FTC raises: how much of the donation goes to the program, and whether the organization is a charity or a political action committee. Those are not the same thing. Donations to a political action committee are not tax-deductible, and the money is used differently, so a caller who is vague about which one they represent has answered an important question by dodging it.

It is also worth checking whether a gift is one-time or recurring before confirming it, and then checking the statement afterward. The FTC advises reviewing bank and card statements after donating to confirm the amount and to catch a recurring donation that was not intended.

Disaster appeals deserve an extra check

Appeals that follow a hurricane, a fire, a flood, or a shooting arrive at the moment when checking feels least appropriate and matters most. The urgency is genuine, which is exactly what gets borrowed.

The FTC publishes specific guidance on avoiding scams after weather emergencies and natural disasters, and the advice is consistent with the general rule: donate to organizations you know or have checked, and be wary of any appeal that insists on an immediate, irreversible payment.

Disaster periods also bring a second kind of impersonation. The IRS notes on its tax scams page that impersonators call disaster victims offering help filing casualty loss claims, and that the IRS does not call without notifying people by mail first. Fake charities and fake agency callers often work the same news cycle.

New organizations do form after a disaster, and some of them are real. That is a reason to check rather than a reason to refuse, and a newly formed group with no filings yet is one you can support through a route you can verify, such as an established organization already operating in the area.

Year-end appeals and the deduction question

The final weeks of the year bring the heaviest volume of donation requests, because many people give when they are thinking about their taxes. High volume makes an extra request easy to lose among legitimate ones, and the deadline pressure is real enough that it does not need to be manufactured.

If the deduction matters to you, confirm it rather than assume it. The FTC’s advice is to look the organization up in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, because an organization eligible to receive deductible contributions will be listed there. Donations to a political action committee, to an individual, and to many crowdfunding campaigns are not deductible.

Keep records of what you give, since you may need them later. And if a caller says you already pledged last year, stop and check your own records instead of theirs. The FTC lists that claim as a recurring tactic, used because it makes a person more likely to agree.

Phone calls, texts, and knocks at the door

Fundraising calls are legal even when your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry, so receiving one proves nothing either way. What does mean something is whether the caller follows the rules that apply to them, which the FTC sets out.

• They cannot call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.
• They have to give the name of the charity and say they are calling to seek a donation.
• They cannot lie about the fundraiser’s connection to the charity, the charity’s purpose, whether a donation is tax-deductible, how the money will be used, or any affiliation with the government.
• They generally cannot use a robocall or a recorded message unless you are a member or a prior donor, and even then they have to offer a way to opt out.
• Their caller ID has to be truthful and show a number you can call to be put on the charity’s do-not-call list.

Caller ID itself is not evidence. The FTC warns that it is easy to fake, so a call that appears to come from a local number or a known organization can come from anywhere. The reliable move is the same one that works for impostor scams generally: end the call and start a new one to a number you looked up yourself.

Someone at the door asking for cash is the hardest version to check on the spot, and it is entirely reasonable to say you give only through the organization’s own website and to close the conversation there.

Crowdfunding and social media fundraisers

A personal fundraiser is not a charity, and that is not a criticism. It means the money goes to a person or a small group rather than to a registered organization, that there is usually no filing to read, and that the donation is generally not tax-deductible.

The FTC publishes separate guidance on donating through crowdfunding and fundraising platforms. The practical points are about knowing who you are giving to and what the platform does when something goes wrong: whether it verifies organizers, whether it has a refund policy, and what fees it takes.

On social media, a reposted appeal carries no verification from the person who reposted it. Images are reused across campaigns, and a fundraiser can be set up in the name of a real family or a real disaster by someone with no connection to either. Giving to a fundraiser started by someone you actually know, or to an established organization working on the same problem, avoids most of this.

Fake online storefronts that promise to donate a share of each sale sit in the same territory, and the checks are the ones in our guide to online shopping scams.

What to do if you already gave

Start with the payment method, because that determines what is still possible, then report. Giving to something that turned out to be fake is not a failure of judgment; the appeals are written by people who test them against thousands of readers.

1. Call your card issuer or bank. Report it and ask about a dispute. The FTC lists the route for each payment method in what to do if you were scammed.
2. Cancel any recurring donation. Check the statement for a repeating charge you did not intend, and cancel it with the bank as well as with the organization if needed.
3. Keep the records. The appeal, the receipt, the caller’s number, the website address, and the date.
4. Report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
5. Report to your state. Start with your state attorney general, which in most states is also where charity registration and solicitation complaints are handled. Charity fundraising is regulated mostly at the state level, so this report often matters more than the federal one.
6. Add the FBI if it happened online. File at IC3.gov. If a solicitation arrived by mail, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service takes mail fraud reports.

Recovery depends on how you paid and how quickly you call, and a card payment usually leaves the most room. Our hub on how to report a scam and try to recover your money covers what each office does with a report. Anyone who contacts you afterward offering to recover the donation for a fee is running a separate scam.

Charity scam FAQ